There’s a lot more to Seattle than Starbucks, tech giants Microsoft and Amazon, and Shawn Kemp. The city, perched in the Pacific Northwest, has it all. It’s a true seaport city; the fishing industry helped establish the city some 150 years ago. But it’s also surrounded by rich forests and mountain ranges to the east; the timber industry an equal contributor to modern Seattle through the 1800’s and 1900’s.

Today though you’re more likely to run into a self driving car than a crate of salmon as you navigate the downtown area.

Seattle is also a sporting city and always has been, home to a number of professional teams across the NBA, WNBA, MLB, NFL, and more. Its running history however, isn’t so rich.

Trying to change that is Club Seattle Runners Division (CSRD). The group, started in February 2017 by Ashley Davies, Miran McCash and David Oh, is truly representative of the city. It’s diverse, welcoming, and these guys are tough (although Seattle doesn’t get a heap of snow, it gets bitterly cold and wet during winter).

“We started CSRD when Nike Run Club (NRC) Seattle stopped having organized runs. Miran, a Seattle native, and I, a seattle transplant, met through NRC. David was one of the photographers who took pictures for Nike’s events, and had seen running crews across the country but recognized there was something different and special about this group. Although some of the runners met through NRC, the group has since attracted people from across the city - born and raised in Seattle, some new to Seattle, some veteran runners, and some who had their first miles with CSRD.” offers co-founder Ashley Davies.

CSRD runs two to three times per week. There’s Monday Night Miles (guess when that is?), and Easy & Lazy Wednesday’s, as well as Saturday long runs depending on which race the group is currently targeting. It’s often a cliche to say this about running crews, but the sense of community and friendship amongst the group is strong and genuine. The diversity on hand isn’t just evident through the different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds on display. There’s a true spread of ability, of purpose, and of goals.

MONDAY NIGHT MILES

Monday Night Miles (MNM) meets in at the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), down on Lake Union Park. It’s summer right now, so the days are long and the nights are warm.

According to co-founder David Oh, MNM is designed for locals and newcomers alike.

“This is our signature run and thus, most popular. We really wanted to give a tour of Seattle to the newcomers and have everyone meet right in the city for everyone who runs with us on the regular basis. Seattle is relatively small city compared to places like LA, Chicago, or New York so you can go from one neighborhood to another fairly quickly."

The run route for MNM is the same each week. It’s a simple out-and-back alongside Westlake Ave North, hugging the water, with the 5 mile crossing the Fremont Ave bridge before turning back.

“From downtown (MOHAI), it only takes a few miles to go to Fremont neighborhood and if you want to go longer, you can go all the way out to Gas Works Park, which is in Wallingford neighborhood. Gas Works Park is a popular spot for people in Seattle. It directly looks at the view of downtown Seattle. We feel like it’s a nice reward for 5 milers to admire the view of the city before they head back to downtown.”

“One of the most unique things about Seattle is that the city is surrounded with nature. We have lush green, tall pine trees, waters of Puget Sound and for us, MNM is to be in tune with that very cityscape. We have all types of runners come through. Personally, I love when people who never ran before joins us. See those people come again after the first run makes my heart warm.” comments David Oh.

A runner that has been coming to MNM since the start is Jayson Sanchez. These days he leads many of the MNM runs.

“I look forward to MNM with CSRD because it sets me up for the work week and also revives me from my weekend. We get to meet new people on a weekly basis and enjoy the city on foot, together. I can't deny the camaraderie among this group. It's definitely kept me, at the very least, inspired, challenged, and motivated.”

The emphasis of MNM isn’t so much on lighting up Strava with PR’s, more on running together and taking time for yourself after a day at work and starting off the week with some miles, laughter, and great friends. In this regard, MNM is a gateway drug to the more serious, longer runs the group regularly organizes through Facebook and Instagram.

“We’ve seen too many running ‘groups’ that would blow past everyone who comes to run and often leaving newer runners in the group feeling left out and sometimes embarrassed. We don’t encourage that here. We certainly have fast runners that’ll take on longer routes on Monday but they encourage each other as they willingly pace each other.” says David Oh.

Easy and Lazy Wednesday

Wednesday’s start in Jefferson Park at the Community Center, for an easy 3 miler. If you’re lucky, there might even be a couple of dogs joining you on this one. Treat this like you recovery day in your weekly training. A chance to catch up with the crew, laugh it out, and maybe make those weekend long run plans. David sees this as the natural first run for newcomers.

“The Easy and Lazy run was something that I’ve wanted to do since we found our crew. Group run intimidates people, lot of people tells me that they would like to join us for the run but fear that they might be the slowest run out there. Hence, I wanted to break that fear by running slow and become more inviting. Slower the better, actually. This is a day and a place where we want people to get familiar not just with group running but running as a whole. Don’t get intimidated, we all start from somewhere.”

Now might be a good time to give you the background on David Oh, the co-founder of CSRD. When David puts together a run, or thinks about what works and what doesn’t work for CSRD, it’s coming from a place of deep knowledge and experience with modern running crews. As a leading photographer, David has been all over the United States hanging and shooting some of the biggest and best crews in the country. He’s respected everywhere he goes, and takes his role at CSRD seriously. He does this for other people more than for what he gets out of it.

“I look at the running crew as a social space. I’ve rubbed shoulders with some of better crews around the country over the years as a photographer and the crews that make impressions on me are those who foster a community. We could’ve done the run downtown, but I specifically chose Jefferson Park because it’s the part of town that even most Seattleites don’t even know about. Jefferson Park is in South Seattle neighborhood."

"We knew there was a good chunk of people from this neighborhood coming to our Monday runs despite the traffic (it typically takes them 20-35 mins on freeway) so when we decided to add a run, it had to be done here. We want to build our community as a crew and this feels like a perfect neighborhood to do so. Again, my vision for Wednesday run was to serve our crew as a social space so what I’m looking for is just easy run and then have a social hour at the local taqueria afterwards."

Outside of Monday and Wednesday, the group does a weekend long run that hits different parts of town, with the type of run changing based on what events they’re training for.

“The Saturday runs started given that much of the crew was training for the Seattle Rock N’ Roll Half Marathon/ and Marathon this past June. Now the crew is training for fall marathons including, Chicago, Portland, and Twin Cities to name a few. Some people aren’t training for a race at all. They simply come for the good vibes and miles with the crew.” offers Ashley Davies.

For a relatively young crew like CSRD, in a city without a well-established running culture (like the way cities like NY and Berlin have for instance), both Ashley and David are staunch in their views for the future.

David offers, "The city is always going to have mom-and-pop running clubs and we see brands starting to tap into running culture a little more in Seattle despite the absence of NRC, but I think that's pretty much the same with any other city that's big enough. Brands come and go but we aren't, we'll stick around. We want to exist in this city with our own cultures and ethos that we stand by".

Ashley explains that the work the team puts into CSRD is geared towards the experience of the newcomer, and this leads to people coming back again and again.

"We have two main mantras for our runs, “All paces and all faces welcomed” and “no runner left behind.” David, Jeremy Higuchi (another crew leader and CSRD’s graphic and social media lead), and I meet at least once a month to plan for upcoming runs, events, and ways to spread the word about our crew. We always come back to thinking about how we welcome ALL runners to the crew. We believe if we can make our first timers feel welcome and they have a good time, then they come back and help another new person feel welcome the following week."